Project Started

Today is the start of Trakr.site, which is a project I have created to hone my programming skills, develop into a paid web and mobile application, as well as use myself on a daily basis.

I am a diabetic, and I take insulin. I take a number of pills. I take daily vitals. I also track my meals’ carbs and calories. I’ve been using Google sheets for this, but even with formulas and conditional formatting, it’s not enough.

Additionally, I want to track how many pills I have left, when I should call in for a refill, and when I’m forecast to run out. And I want to track the times I take pills, eat my meals, and take my vitals. And I want to make it easier as my medications change to discontinue old meds and start tracking new ones without having to worry about what happens to the columns in the spreadsheet. Finally, I want to be able to run reports on the data I’m gathering.

Ultimately, I believe an application that makes it easy to track all these things can help others besides myself. So I want to make this available for multiple users at a fair price, because I should be able to make a little money for the time I’m investing in this project.

This is a big project, so I’m starting out heading toward a “MVP” — a “minimum viable product” — which will be useful to start with. And then I will keep adding features until it becomes useful for as many as use it.

I’ll also post updates on this blog with progress — both with the app, and in my personal life as well.

I am a health educator and work with mainly diabetics. There is huge benefits for people with diabetes to visualize trends, averages and patterns in relation to the food and exercise choices they make. There are several apps they can use but not many are as comprehensive as what you are striving toward. I’ll be waiting!

Awesome! I know it’s going to take me a long time (months, at least) to get this to a useful point. The more I think about the level of customization I want, the more I realize it will take a LOT of work to make that happen. And exercise is an area that I also need to consider tracking, too.